New study links current events to climate change

The science in Hansen's study is excellent "and reframes the question," said Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia who was a member of the Nobel Prize-winning international panel of climate scientists that issued a series of reports on global warming.

"Rather than say, 'Is this because of climate change?' That's the wrong question. What you can say is, 'How likely is this to have occurred with the absence of global warming?' It's so extraordinarily unlikely that it has to be due to global warming," Weaver said.

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For years scientists have run complex computer models using combinations of various factors to see how likely a weather event would happen without global warming and with it. About 25 different aspects of climate change have been formally attributed to man-made greenhouse gases in dozens of formal studies. But these are generally broad and non-specific, such as more heat waves in some regions and heavy rainfall in others.

Another upcoming study by Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, links the 2010 Russian heat wave to global warming by looking at the underlying weather that caused the heat wave. He called Hansen's paper an important one that helps communicate the problem.

But there is bound to be continued disagreement. Previous studies had been unable to link the two, and one by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded that the Russian drought, which also led to devastating wildfires, was not related to global warming.

Skeptical scientist John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville said Hansen shouldn't have compared recent years to the 1950s-1980s time period because he said that was a quiet time for extremes.

But Derek Arndt, director of climate monitoring for the federal government's National Climatic Data Center, said that range is a fair one and often used because it is the "golden era" for good statistics.

Granger Morgan, head of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, called Hansen's study "an important next step in what I expect will be a growing set of statistically-based arguments."

In a landmark 1988 study, Hansen predicted that if greenhouse gas emissions continue, which they have, Washington, D.C., would have about nine days each year of 95 degrees or warmer in the decade of the 2010s. So far this year, with about four more weeks of summer, the city has had 23 days with 95 degrees or hotter temperatures.

Hansen says now he underestimated how bad things would get.

And while he hopes this will spur action including a tax on the burning of fossil fuels, which emit carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas, others doubt it.

Science policy expert Roger Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado said Hansen clearly doesn't understand social science, thinking a study like his could spur action. Just because something ought to happen, doesn't mean it will, he said.

In an email, he wrote: "Hansen is pursuing a deeply flawed model of policy change, one that will prove ineffectual and with its most lasting consequence a further politicization of climate science (if that is possible!)."

The climate has changed. My state, for instance, has had far fewer days of 100+ heat this summer compared to last year. The sun and weather cycles will do that from time to time. We are used to it around here.

If there was no climate change, then a lot of North America would still be under glaciers.

There's nothing man can do about it anyway. And even if there was, there's nothing that a bankrupt country can do to influence it a bit. Even if we stopped the billions that go to foodstamps or public education and diverted the money to throw at quixotic "climate change", it's not going to make any difference. It's a straw-man.

May have a bit more credibility if all the record highs eclipsed in my state weren't set in 1936. In fact, it's still the hottest summer on record. So unless current events have some kind of retroactive impact of, oh about 76 years, take it with a big grain of salt.

Robert Hanson is a shrill voice and has little credibility with me. I do not trust his objectivity. Ditto for Mann and his hockey stick. On the other hand, Professor Muller's BEST study must be taken seriously. However in spite of Muller's impressive study, I remain skeptical about AGW. Maybe some warming is due to humans, but it seems illogical to attribute all or most to humans: We know that the earth, over the eons, has gone through a succession of ice and warm ages. For Muller's conclusion that all or most GW is from CO2 emissions would seem to require the suspension of the earth's constant tendency to always be changing (oscillations, warmer or colder). To expect the earth to hold steady seems quite strange--sort of like expecting random events to occur on a regular basis. Therefore, it seems to me that Muller should have identified whatever underlying trend is most likely occurring. That he did not, and apparently did not even address the issue (in his op-ed), seems to indicate a weakness in his conclusions (I didn't read his study, possibly he did there). He also did not address deforestation (esp. in the tropics) as a contributor. Then there are the station issues Anthony Watts raises. For these reasons alone Muller's conclusions seem premature.

Now, let's assume Muller is correct, and that global warming is anthropogenic. Why is it bad? In any honest debate, there are always two sides. In the main stream press, we've really only heard the "bad"--the thought police even coined the chilling term "GW denier." Well, for one thing, plants like CO2, so they'll grow better. More heat in the atmosphere means the air will be able to hold more moisture: That could mean more rain. Some desert regions might be much better off. Realize that most fossil fuels we use came from a warmer earth's abundant life, eons ago. Here in Alaska we certainly could use warmer temperatures--last winter was one of the coldest in decades. Anyone who makes a decision on the basis of a dishonest debate is, I submit, being foolish. To sum it up, a weather scientist I know said "It is a diagnostic of the intent of the left that no one is asking the question; Is a warmer climate necessarily bad?" This brilliant statement, in one sentence, lays bare the entire dishonest debate. We need to not let the bullies of AGW shout down the voices of reason.

Got to give you booger eaters credit, even after lie after lie that has discredited your massive wealth redistribution scheme, you keep peddling your garbage.. Shouldn't this be called global warming and not climate change? I can't keep track.

Hansen and Schmidt of NASA GISS under fire for climate stance: Engineers, scientists, astronauts ask NASA administration to look at empirical evidence rather than climate models

HOUSTON, TX – April 10, 2012.

49 former NASA scientists and astronauts sent a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden last week admonishing the agency for it’s role in advocating a high degree of certainty that man-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change while neglecting empirical evidence that calls the theory into question.

The climate change movement is only about inhibiting wealth creation and redistributing any wealth that still exists. The left has a horrid history concerning environmental stewardship.

The Russians used to shoot holes in barrels filled with radioactive waste so that they would sink in the Barents Sea. The left doesn't know how to build and sustain dynamic economies. These arrested development types are only interested in tearing down the hard work of mostly decent people.

As miserable a summer as it has been this year with many, many days well into the low 100s, the people who should know, such as NOAA and The National Weather Service are each saying that this year is only the 5th hottest since they began tracking these things for our area of the Mid West.

Now I am no scientist, but one thing I do know. As soon as the greenies start talking Global Warming, carbon tax is not far behind. That my friends is only and all about redistribution of wealth and greater taxation.

Hansen is a scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and a professor at Columbia University. But he is also a strident activist who has called for government action to curb greenhouse gases for years. While his study was published online Saturday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, it is unlikely to sway opinion among the remaining climate change skeptics.

One cannot be an "activist" and also be consider an objectionable scientist ..

Hansen Uses 30 Year Cherry Picked Time Period To Prove That Climate Is The Most Extreme In 10,000 Years

'He claims that the weather is the most extreme in 10,000 years based on a baseline of 'the last few decades' -- 'There were twice as many daily all-time high temperature records set or tied during the 1930s as in the 2000s, for USHCN stations which were operational during both decades. That is why he doesn't start his baseline until the 1950s. Perhaps the 1930s was more than 10,000 years ago?'

Something is seriously wrong with the GHCN US data. Two-thirds of the stations are at airports and they show regular divergences from the non-airport stations which can only be described as …. bizarre.

The non-airport stations show almost no trend over the last 80 years, with 1921 and 1990 tied for the hottest year, and a steep cooling trend over the last 20 years.

I recall from personal memory that back in the 1970s we were being warned by some liberal scientists and liberal media that we were entering a new ice age. In less than a generation later the new fad was to warn us about global warming. I never took either warning serious. It is really laughable if it were not for the possible consequences of people believing and being taken in by this propaganda. This global warming scheme is a false religion of leftist/cultist environmentalist groups and manipulation by the Socialist/Statist government, coupled by some people getting rich on the side by enforcing such propaganda. Certainly it has been hot this summer in the state where I live. But as several previous commentators have mentioned, much of our country went through a heat and drought situation in the 1930s that was worse than what we have had this summer. Perhaps we are in another warm cycle for several years. I don't know. But I remember some pretty cold and snow packed winters in recent years.

I recall from personal memory that back in the 1970s we were being warned by some liberal scientists and liberal media that we were entering a new ice age. In less than a generation later the new fad was to warn us about global warming. I never took either warning serious. It is really laughable if it were not for the possible consequences of people believing and being taken in by this propaganda. This global warming scheme is a false religion of leftist/cultist environmentalist groups and manipulation by the Socialist/Statist government, coupled by some people getting rich on the side by enforcing such propaganda. Certainly it has been hot this summer in the state where I live. But as several previous commentators have mentioned, much of our country went through a heat and drought situation in the 1930s that was worse than what we have had this summer. Perhaps we are in another warm cycle for several years. I don't know. But I remember some pretty cold and snow packed winters in recent years.

I love the way we don't let our incomplete grasp of the facts stop us from arguing with a scientist who has spent his whole life studying climate change. I have even seen a post where someone tries to refute global climate change, using his/her state's weather pattern observed during the course of his/her life, as evidence that climate change is not happening.